The refresher course, organized in Navrongo in the Upper East Region and funded by the Canadian Teachers Federation; a teachers’ group based in Canada, brought together 331 teachers from the primary, junior high and senior high schools from the two Regions.

The programme was to improve upon the knowledge base of teachers and introduce them to modern techniques of teaching to enhance academic performance. It was the 56th training programme and had10 females and 201 males attending.

Speaking at the programme, Madam Philippa Larsen, the National President of GNAT, in her welcome address indicated that the world was evolving at a fast pace in an era of knowledge explosion, and so teachers needed to be abreast with the changing trends.

“In our quest to raise education standards in the country, we must make sure we invest a lot in our members and that is exactly what we have done over the years and continue to do.

“It must be noted that if all structures are in place and the teachers are poorly trained the right results would not be achieved,” the National President said.

She admonished the teachers to put the knowledge acquired during the training into good use to improve performance of pupils and students.

Mrs Gifty Apanbil, Deputy General Secretary of GNAT in charge of Training and Programmes, said agriculture was the backbone of the country’s economy, and indicated that the necessary attention had not been given to its teaching and learning at the various schools and called on authorities to device measures to make it attractive for the students to pursue as a profession.

She attributed the high level of indiscipline and immoral acts in schools to some key subjects including history, culture and religious studies, which had being removed from the curricula and  the addition of those that instilled the sense of nationalism and patriotism into the pupils and students, which was critical in the fighting against corruption and enhancing development.

She appealed to the government and other relevant stakeholders to provide the necessary teaching and learning materials such as improved infrastructure and textbooks among others to boost academic work.

The teachers were taken through new teaching methods development to make teaching interesting to their pupils, the teacher professional licensing regime, general course in gender and equity, teacher promotion procedures and how teachers could upgrade themselves.